


High Hopes

by Ellenka



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellenka/pseuds/Ellenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When I open my eyes, he is there. A bit of cathartic angst and high hope set at the very end of Mockingjay, with alternative ending potential.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> All ownership disclaimed. Title & all quoted lyrics: High Hopes by Pink Floyd. All the blame goes to the song, do give it a listen.  
> Prologue from Gale's POV, the rest from Katniss'.

* * *

**0.**

_Encumbered forever by desire and ambition_  
 _There's a hunger still unsatisfied_  
 _Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon_  
 _Though down this road we've been so many times_

* * *

I've always been too damn stubborn to accept defeat.

Not a good trait in a world where you are  _born_  defeated, and reminded of it every day, every year.

After dreaming about a rebellion all my life, there was nothing I  _wouldn't_  do when the dream finally came true. I had no idea how easily it can be turned into a nighmare for those who play by the enemy's rules, and don't even recognize all their enemies in the first place.

The victory's been achieved, but at what cost?

Instead of a celebration, there was only a huge mess for us to take care of, and I felt more or less responsible for a large part of it.

Volunteering to fix it was the only decent option I had left, and I keep telling myself that I didn't start from the easier and less painful end.

Even though the fucking mountain fortress  _had to be_  disabled, Katniss was right - it did look a whole lot like a crumbled mine from the inside. Bad enough even after the ceilings are no longer in danger of caving in, though I don't find it all that hard to imagine how it felt to be stuck there as everything collapsed.

Shouldn't have been worse than the bombing of Twelve.

But the fact that it was  _my_  idea to do it somehow makes it worse.

We've found many things there, bad and worse, but  _not_  blueprints for exploding parachutes. Which wouldn't prove anything. Even if the Capitol had accomplished the idea first, I did it too, and unknowingly gave a perfect weapon to an even more insidious adversary.

And a proof wouldn't really matter anyway.

Not for me, I'm still up for a lifetime of trying to make amends for what I thought needed to be done.

Not for Katniss.

The haunted grief I saw in her eyes when I'd handed her the last arrow she ended up using to kill the person that hurt her even more than President Snow had told me as much.

And told who might have hurt her the  _most_.

There was neither time nor place for reconciliation then, not before she'd carried out her own sentence over Alma Coin, and had been surrounded by guards and whisked away before I could get to her through the crowd and free her like she was begging me to. It would have been like shooting an arrow through my own heart, but I would have done as much for her, even if I were to receive the same fate moments later.

But I couldn't.

All could do to help her was testifying at her trial, digging out painful truths about Coin and telling lies about Katniss she'd kick me for if she were there to hear them, fighting to free her another way when I'd failed the one she so obviously preferred. I couldn't leave her at the mercy of anyone else.

In the end she'd been cleared of all charges and expressly carted off back to Twelve, to left at her own devices to pick through the ashes of her mind.

I'd left for Two to do my own gravedigging job, without a chance to say goodbye. Telling myself I've done at least  _something_  to assure she'll get a chance at a better life that still might be in store for her, and selfishly holding onto the chance that I might see her again.

Someday.

/

She never answered her phone or a letter… and to be honest, I couldn't imagine her actually reading mine anyway. All I had left of her were snippets of secondhand information, echoes of her numb suffering to haunt me in case the images of collapses and firebombs ever gave me a break.

Those still hurt the most.

Because nothing that happened changed anything about the fact that I love her, and can't live with what remained of us, with how we'd parted.

Not like I deserved to.

I've never been the first in something that's never been a contest, and now I'm disqualified anyway, but I need to see her, at least once more. Just one more time, just to meet her somewhere where we can be ourselves, just to try if we see something else than two war-torn and war-divided strangers, to have a shot at some better memory to carry on with for the rest of our lives.

Perhaps the best thing for her would be if I let her go entirely and left her alone, but I tell myself I can't know for sure. Too much had remained unsaid.

/

I make the trip to Twelve as soon as I'm cleared to do so.

If nothing else, then just to say a meaningless little  _sorry_  that remained stuck in my chest ever since the day we last parted, and grew heavier every day, crushing the life out of me. Heavy like the dead weight of a little girl, heavy like a shattered mountain, heavy like our brave new fucking  _unthinkable_ world.

/

I'm halfway through the meadow that is being dug up and turned into a mass grave when I realize that Katniss probably won't even be in the forest at all.

Perhaps she has no reason to be, not anymore. Perhaps she has no strength to come there.

But it's still the first place where I'd go looking for her, and even though hoping to find her there would be hoping too high, I can't bring myself to turn back and go looking for her in a more probable place. Like the mockery of her life that is the Victors' Village where she'd been confined. No.

/

I'm a good distance beyond the now useless fence when the air stops smelling of ashes. But the crisp, cool breeze fails to disperse the blackness stuck inside me.

Even if the forest is the same, I'm not, and I don't know if I could still belong here.

Maybe I'll just corrupt it.

Katniss would probably think so.

This is the place where we used to meet again and again, this is the place where we'd shared our happiest times, but now I can't take for granted we'll meet here again, or that we'll ever walk the same path together.

But I'm too stubborn for that.

The future we might have had is in ashes, but I still find myself looking to the green horizon for some hope.

/

I find it right on the ground - still muddy with the spring thaw, in the form of the familiar footprints of a wingless mockingjay.

Who else would come here but her?

( _Or whoever remained of her after everything that happened_ , I remind myself, but press on.)

After following the traces of hope down a path I could walk (and have so often walked!) entirely blind, I find her on our rock, so small and fragile in a place where we would be sitting together if anything was right in the world.

She's sitting there with her head bowed, palm covering her eyes and lips moving very slowly, soundlessly chanting something I can't quite catch.

With sudden and jarring clarity, I'm reminded of a different time when I'd seen her like this, after the first Games, after she'd  _won_.

Winning that was bad enough, that victory has come close enough to destroying what she'd been before.

What now?

Now she's lost, she'd lost everything she fought for, and deliberately or not, the last haunting memory of her broken gaze holds me at least partly responsible.

At least as much as I hold myself.

There's no reason for it to have changed.

I almost turn to leave her alone, never to taint her world again.

But I don't - because I realize she's counting, slowly counting to ten with her eyes covered, like she used to so many times before. she used to do it for fun, mostly when we were younger. When she was waiting for me to appear and to join her.

She's doing it now, like before, like always. Because we belong here together.

There might still be a way.

If she still thinks she's waiting here for me, there is still hope.

Before I can move, her eyes open and fasten on me, full of old ashes and misery, and an even older ghost of a habit that died hard.


	2. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Katniss)

**I.**

_Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us  
to a glimpse of how green it was on the other side_  
 _Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again_  
Dragged by the force of some inner tide

* * *

Peeta said he'd found the primrose bushes in the woods. For  _her_ , he said. For Prim.

Yellow flowers as a sign of hope, different this time.

Primroses.

From the woods.

Once again giving me the strength to go there, because that's where I've always gone looking for some sort of sustenance.

What could I find in there now?

Prim had hardly ever been in the woods. The longest time she'd spent there was when District Twelve no longer existed, when Gale led the survivors to safety.

He led  _her_  to safety.

Then.

Only for everything to end in another firebomb, one he might have designed and left for Coin to misuse. The flames are long gone and so is  _her_  pain, but mine lingers on.

I'd spent months staring into the fire, for fire it was that had taken her, but she never emerged from my hearth.

Could she emerge out of the woods now, a flower out of the endless green?

She can't.

_She no longer exists_ , I remind myself. I have to remind myself every time.

I won't find her there.

But my feet keep carrying me on.

Perhaps I'll at least find myself. Again.

I just don't know if that's worth it anymore.

/

Whom else could I find in the woods?

Gale…

I  _could_  find Gale.

No.

When I'd asked Greasy Sae about him, she told me he's in Two, with some sort of a fancy job, and I was relieved.

Then and there, in the house where I'd willingly imprisoned myself, I felt relief, relief at the thought that I'll never have to face him again. That I'll never have to deal with my best friend turned stranger by the Capitol that had oppressed us, and by Thirteen that misused us both.

Strangers. That's what I saw when I'd met him for the last time. We were standing in front of a mirror, uniformed for a meaningless ceremony, two strangers with a ghost on fire dividing them.

Forever, or so I thought.

But that was  _there_ , far away in the crumbled Capitol, in a place where I was a stranger to myself too.

Does it even count?

Here… here I still find myself missing him.

This is our place.

Free of ashes and ghosts of war, and replete with memories of times when our smiles used to reach our eyes.

I don't know what would I do if I saw him again, not really. I don't know if I'd still see him through the prism of a screaming human torch burned into my eyelids.

It was wrong, all wrong, so much wrong has happened I don't know what's right anymore.

Would it be right if I never saw him again?

I don't know.

All I know is that the woods used to feel so much more alive when I sensed his presence near, that I've never felt natural here without him. Not after I'd returned after winning my first Games, not now that I'm returning after losing my last.

It feels odd to be coming here when I know that Gale won't be waiting, and don't even know if I could bear seeing him again.

We are supposed to have set the world right, aren't we?

Then why is it so wrong? Why is all the comfort I used to take for granted for so long  _gone_?

I've lost Prim after having done everything in my power to save her, I've as good as lost my mother when our  _second_  mutual love burned.

And I've lost Gale somewhere in her ashes and he has lost me.

Could we still find each other here?

/

My feet are dragging by the time I make it to our old, empty meeting place.

I approach the rock where Cressida filmed us, and shudder in disgust when I realize that my first impulse was to think of it as  _the rock where Cressida filmed us_.

Is this what remained of a place where I'd been happy for years? Has it been reduced to a prop in a propo? Along with the rest of my life?

No, it isn't. It can't be.

It's so much more.

A place where I was happy.

Blinking rapidly, I dispel the image of a boy and a girl sitting here laughing, back when all their woes lay beyond the fence.

It  _used to be_  so much more.

Even if I were to meet Gale here now, we wouldn't be laughing, and we'd be carrying all our burdens inside, burned forever into our souls.

After lowering my already exhausted body down, I wiggle and try to find a position that would feel natural and comfortable, but I can't find it. The rock is too wide and cold without Gale's body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did.

Every repetition is slower, the soundless numbers sluggish and tentative, as if reluctant to be breathed in vain.

/

When I open my eyes for the last time, he's there.

I gasp as if I were seeing a ghost, a ghost of my old life that died along with my sister.

I've been willing him to appear, and yet I can't quite believe my eyes when I do see him.

Gale wavers on his feet, as if torn between stepping forward and turning back.

But I want him to stay, at least for long enough to prove he's real.

That at least  _he_  can come back to me, for better or worse.

Or would I get along better with an illusion, as guilty or as innocent as I care to make it?

Perhaps yes, but I'm fed up with the fake.

Gale takes few steps towards me, slow, careful not to scare me away.

He doesn't sit by my side, he sinks to one knee in front of me instead, bringing us exactly to eye level.

Equal. Close.

_Really?_

Lifting my arms with some effort, I brush my hands over his shoulders, neck and face, with a touch as light as moth wings, making sure he's not a ghost come to haunt me.

Gale blinks slowly at the contact, lips moving soundlessly as if with some word that died unspoken, and snapping shut when I brush my fingers against them in a limp fall down, suddenly too overwhelmed and exhausted.

It's him.

Gale.

Who is he to me now?

The twisted sadness still lingers between us, pressing the air from my lungs, making every move and thought difficult.

We are back here. Together. Who are we now?

Gale is silent, but his eyes are expressive like open books, open for me to read.

We haven't really seen eye to eye for years, not since we'd been reaped apart for the first time.

And when we finally got the chance to fight together against the real enemy, we were no longer able to work as a team, and we've done so much wrong for a cause I'd inadvertently started, and he deliberately wanted to finish at all costs.

I was fighting to finish off one person whose death hadn't even mattered to me in the end, Gale was fighting to finish off the war for good. We were both fighting, regardless of the collateral damage.

And  _we_  became another casualty.

Like Prim.

The last time I volunteered to go to the Capitol, I did it in order to take a life, not to save one. She'd volunteered to save lives and lost hers in the process, because anything we do can be turned against us.

I've learned it. Prim has learned it. Gale has learned it.

All too late.

My lids scrunch shut over eyes blinded by sudden blasting fire, fire devouring a girl in a white medic uniform, fire devouring a white rose.

_If we burn, you burn with us_.

That's what I'd said, and my words have come truer than I wanted them to.

We've burned, we've all burned, and it hurts so much I can hardly bring myself to care that the Capitol has burned as well.

I breathe deeply and swallow a scream.

Only a sigh escapes into the silence.

Gale's giving me time to react, time to collect my rambling thoughts, and doesn't try to make me look at him. I find myself grateful for that.

He knows. He understands. Still.

"Hey, Katniss," he says at last, carefully, as if afraid a breath would break me.

And it almost does, but it's the breath I'm trying and failing to take. The guilt and sorrow I saw in his eyes equal and exacerbate my own, heavy enough to sink down and form a lump in my throat.

"Gale," I choke out.

"Catnip." His voice is soft with regret and loaded with concern. His breath on my face is warm with life, not scorching with heat of the flames, but I shrink away. Gale inhales sharply and continues. "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have come at all. But I had to see you at least once more, I had to tell you how much I regret everything that…"

I'm still not looking at him, I'm not really listening. Hearing his voice is enough.

I know that the pain I saw in his eyes the day we last parted has just grown heavier, sank deeper, and dug harder, torturing him like mutt claws.

He'd told me I'll always be thinking about it, and I guess he was right, but it was just as true for him.

And I know Prim wouldn't want it that way.

Gale hadn't reaped her. He hadn't sent her to the Capitol. He just wanted to do anything to assure that nobody else would have to go there against their will anymore.

That nobody else would have to go through what I've gone through. What Prim's gone through. What we've all gone through.

Why did it have to end with the worst possible disaster? Why did we fail the person we'd both have given anything to protect?

_Why?_

The question is so heavy I can't bear it, I'm crumbling under its weight.

Could we bear it together?

Without thinking, I lean forward and Gale must mirror my movement, because my forehead almost immediately falls onto his shoulder. I turn my head slightly, burying my nose in his neck and clenching my fists in his shirt so tightly my knuckles hurt; suddenly holding onto the only tangible remnant of the life  _before_  with all that's left of my strength.

Gale's arms wrap around me, vainly striving to hold me together, his lips are in my hair now, still muttering breathless apologies I don't care about, over and over again.

I don't know when I start crying, I certainly wasn't planning to. I just  _do,_  and all the grief that had been stuck and sealed inside me breaks out, unstoppable. But the tears feel somehow good, somehow cleansing, as if they could wash away all the ashes to reveal a pure memory.

I don't know how long we stay like this. Time doesn't exist, only tears, and I cry until they run dry and my head starts spinning with exhaustion.

I can barely hold it up as I pull away and try to sit straight, so Gale gently cups my face to support me, his thumbs caressing my salty-wet cheeks.

There's no blood on his hands, just tears. I lay one hand on his to share them.

The crippling ache in my heart remains, but it feels just a little sweeter, and the misty forest just waking up from winter sleep is just a little greener.

When I focus my blurry gaze on him, Gale no longer looks like a stranger against that backdrop.

I'd been too wracked by my own sobs to register his, if he'd indeed uttered any, but his eyes are moist now, just flooded ashes and no fire. Mirroring mine. No longer the eyes of someone who'd casually deal destruction.

Prim is dead in them now, but also alive, somewhere very deep within where our fondest memories lie.

Gale had known her and loved her, he'd known and loved me back when I still had her, and even though it see her death when I look at him, I see something else too, something I'd lose forever if I let him slip away too.

Something I don't want to lose.

Perhaps someday, I'll be able to see only the life.

But now I close my eyes again, because I can't bear to see the image of death.

I feel Gale lean forward and press a butterfly kiss between my eyebrows, like a third eye that's not blinded. "I know it's not something I could ask of you," he whispers against my skin. "I can't really ask you for forgiveness. But I hope that someday, you'll be able to look at me without so much pain."

"I don't know," I whisper. Then few more words, I don't even know where I get the strength to say them, but truth obviously has ways of surfacing. "I'd want to."

"That's more than I hoped for, Catnip," Gale whispers. He hesitates slightly, but tightens his arms around me when I don't pull away. It feels right, him holding me tight, like at the very beginning, right after I believed I'd saved Prim for the first time.

Perhaps something can be salvaged after all.

Relaxing slightly, I lean against him and breathe.

It seems a little easier now. Just a little. Some of the nightmarish pressure on my chest is gone, replaced by his solid warmth and strength.

I'm too tired for anything else.

* * *

I wake up screaming her name, flailing and clutching at cold fabric.

Cold.

She's gone.

Disappeared in hot flames.

My eyes fly open, wide and frightened.

I'm back in the house.

On top of the covers of my bed, fully clothed, only my boots are off.

Moments later, my vision focuses and I notice Gale sitting on the floor by the bed, close but not touching me. His face is hovering above mine, lines of worry and sorrow sharp in the moonlight streaming through unshuttered windows.

I flinch and curl into a tight ball.

"Shh, it's just me. I'm not gonna hurt you," he whispers. I vaguely register how much pain the need to reassure me cost him, but I can't deal with that, not now. "You were very tired," he explains when I don't react. "I carried you here, and you fell asleep."

"Ah…" I breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Fire. No fire.

Ashes. No ashes.

I remember now, my energy drained with my tears, my muscles heavy with the weight of grief, Gale offering to carry it all back. To safety, to the semblance of home I had left. Me accepting reluctantly, since I was too tired and woozy to walk straight, and I had to get out of the woods and to the other side of the district.

The only other option was one of the carts they were using to haul the dead to the meadow.

Better to have a living transport. I'm not all the way dead yet.

Gale just helped me out. That's what we do.  _Used to_  do.

Could we do that again?

I don't know.

"Thanks?" I say aloud.

One corner of his mouth twitches slightly upwards. "Anytime, Catnip."

I nod to the best of my ability, and tentatively watch him. He's just Gale.  _My_  Gale.

It's okay.

It's not okay.

I want to believe it is. I want to.

"D'you want me to stay?" he asks softly.

I consider it for a moment and shake my head slightly, eyes closed again. Flames are just as bright behind them. "Not now."

"Later?" he asks in a voice that almost breaks my heart. The hope is high, and I don't want to shoot it down. Both for his sake and mine.

"Yeah."

"Whenever you are ready, Catnip. I'll wait as long as you need me to."

I open my eyes and somehow manage a slight smile. I thought I'd forgotten how to do it.

But maybe not. Maybe things can be good again.

Gale smiles back, this time a real smile,  _his_  smile. The smile of my best friend, from the time of memories, from when the grass was greener and the light was brighter.

When the light we shared was the warm sun, not a funeral pyre.

Then he turns away, reaching the door in a few soft steps. When it closes after him, I feel a bit of relief, and a bit of emptiness.

I hope that someday, I'll be ready to fill the void.

Because anything else would be unthinkable.

Letting Gale go would be just another unbearable loss, and I've been forced to deal with too much of that already.

When I close my eyes, the first flash I see is his bright grin. Peaceful sleep takes me before I see the second.


	3. II

**II.**

_At a higher altitude with flag unfurled  
we reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world…_

This time I don't scream when I wake, just gasp loudly when I find myself staring into the grin of Greasy Sae.

Pale morning light glints off her scarce teeth, blinding my sleepy eyes.

"Someone had a good hunt yesterday, huh?" she says by the way of greeting.

My fuzzy brain takes a while to process the meaning.

Good hunt. Yesterday.

Someone. Who?

Me.

Yes, I went hunting yesterday.

I went into the woods, but hardly dragged myself to the place from where my hunting trips have always  _started_. But I insist that I went hunting, because that's what I do, even though I hadn't even bothered to bring my bow.

"I swear when the boy turned up carrying you like that, I thought you were dead," remarks Sae to fill the silence left by my lack of answer.

Hunting.

I haven't come out there to die, not even to kill. I went hunting for some trace of  _my_  life. And my faithful hunting partner was there to help me out.

I found him and he found me. It was like magic, but why not, why couldn't the impossible odds be in our favor at least once?

"Gale found me. Don't worry."

And brought me back here. I find myself smiling slightly. Perhaps I felt good in his arms, at least subconsciously. After all, I've always been safe with him in the woods.

The nightmares have caught up with me only here.

Nightmares of something that wasn't his fault. Not really. Nightmares of something that was supposed to tear us apart.

I blink rapidly, trying to quench the phantom flames blooming in my mind's eye with a sprinkling of tears.

I won't let  _us_  go without a fight, and neither would Gale, not when he knows it's not entirely lost.

Sae grins, fondness and nostalgia lending beauty to the grimace.

"Sure he'd find ya, sweetheart," she says softly.

I frown suspiciously. "You knew he was here?"

"Nope. He must of gone looking for you there first."

I nod at that. Figures. I've gone looking for myself into the woods as well. Or did I go looking for him?

I don't know, maybe both. I didn't find everything there, not by a long shot, but found something to build on.

Sae lays a plate on the bedside table with a clunk. Two eggs, sunny side up. And cheese buns.

I gape at them wordlessly, and she chuckles.

"Your other boy sends his regards. He went off to Haymitch's yesterday, but seems to have sobered up and remembered about you by the morning."

I open and close my mouth few times. "What?"

Sae just shakes her head at me. "First nothing, then too much, huh? Just eat up, sweetheart. Better trouble your head on a full stomach."

I nod mutely and watch her bustle out of my room, my mind somewhere else.

Peeta.

He's back too. He's brought me primroses, planted the bright yellow flowers to give me hope and strength to carry on. And cheese buns. I can feel my lips stretching into a smile at the thought.

Some habits don't die at all. He still knows what I need.

And what could I give to him, after everything that's happened?

I don't know.

However willing I'd been to die for him, over and over, I've never exactly known how to live with him, what to do without the threat of death hanging above our heads. But now we have all the time we need to figure it out.

And I'll probably need a lot of time, because I just don't feel up to anything much right now.

My head is fuzzy, I'm weak and my chest still feels strangely light, as if empty now that the weight of my grief has been slightly lifted. Problem is that there wasn't much more than grief left of me.

I feel like I could easily blow away. My shell's been emptied to the point of collapsing upon itself, and filling it with substance and sustenance would take time and effort.

But I feel slightly more inclined to undertake it now.

To begin from the easiest end, and wolf down the breakfast, pouring the soft egg yolks over the cheese buns like liquid sunlight.

Perhaps things can be good again.

When I'm done, I stall a little, idly watching dust motes dancing in the light as if they mattered. Then I steel myself to rise, carry the dish down and surprise Sae by cleaning it up myself.

There's a lot of mess I need to clean up myself, but one has to start  _somewhere_.

/

Later, when I open the door to brave the world of the living again, a small furry creature bounds past my legs.

Buttercup. Even he found me after all.

He doesn't stop to acknowledge my presence and streaks further into the house, disappearing from my sight within seconds.

_You won't find_ ** _her_** , I think, closing my eyes. The crazy cat's returned, only to find darkness instead of the ray of light he came looking for.

I sink down against the wall by the door and wait patiently, eyes covered by slightly shaking hands, but peeking every now and then. When he finds out she's not here, he'll probably want to run again. I want to see him on the way out, just as a reminder. Just one last time.

When Buttercup does appear, he's moving sluggishly, as if the effort of the vain search exhausted him beyond fight and flight, and stops close, but not touching me.

I stare into his ugly little face through a haze of new tears, and still somehow perceive how similar we in fact are. Unappealing and ill-tempered creatures that have been blessed by the love of the most adorable and charming person to ever be.

It's me who leans closer, Catnip to a cat.

"Bad news, furball. It's only me left now," I mutter. Tears slide down my cheeks, and Buttercup hisses as they hit his fur, but doesn't bolt. I tentatively reach my hand to bat the pearly drops away. He doesn't try to claw at my hand, as if he knew Prim would've wanted it that way, as if he understood I'm the only reminder of her he has left. Of course it's a preposterous thought, but I find a little solace in it and refuse to let it go.

Overcoming my ingrained disgust, I hug the hideous cat like Prim would, and he lets me do it.

Prim's light may be extinguished in this world, but lingers within, and I'm not letting it die there.

I have to carry on. For her. She's always been saving lives, and wouldn't forgive me if I allowed mine to be wrecked by her absence.

/

After finally making my way out, I notice a dark figure in the distance, heading uphill, a light travel bag slung over their shoulder. I recognize him instantly. I'd know Gale's movements anywhere.

For a second, I contemplate running back and slamming the door. What will I see in the daylight, in the burned down shell of our district?

But then I just take a deep breath instead, and walk forward to meet him. I don't want to hide behind the door of a house in the Victors' Village. I don't want to risk letting him leave without a goodbye, not anymore. Not without reassuring him he can come back.

"Hey," he says softly when we slow down a few paces apart.

"Hey," I choke out.

"I'll have to go back, Catnip. Got called early. I wanted to... try to see you again." He still sounds uncertain, as if he didn't know how I'd react, and it tears at my heart because I don't know myself. All I know is I want Gale to look at me without the haunted guilt. I want to be able to look at him without seeing a shadow of death.

"It's okay," I try to reassure us both.

Closing my eyes, I stretch my hands in front of me, and feel his clasp around them, carefully but tightly. His hands are rough, hands that can both comfort and kill, just like mine. We'll have to learn to live with it, because while we live, we can always find a second chance.

"Will you come here again?" I ask.

I hear the smile in his voice. "Sure."

"Good. I'll walk you to the station." Maybe I'm pushing it, but the hope I glimpse in Gale's eyes when I look at him is worth it. He gives my hands one more squeeze, and lets go.

We walk in silence, not looking at each other, but our feet still easily find their synchronized rhythm.

/

On my way back, I run to Peeta in the Town. "Thanks for the cheese buns," I blurt instead of a proper greeting.

He looks pleasantly surprised. "Anytime, Katniss." He briefly glances back in the direction he'd come from, the part of Town that's being rebuilt already. "I may be opening a new bakery soon."

I find a smile for that. He still knows how to go on, too. "Good for you."

His answering smile falls slightly. "Only for me?"

"For everyone else too. And me. I'm so glad you're back. And... okay."

He does  _look_  okay now. He's survived the games, the war, the fire... just like I did... and just like Prim didn't...

I feel my hands begin to shake.

Peeta sighs and moves closer to support me. I let him and cling to him, as guiltily and gratefully as ever. "I wish I could say the same to you," he mutters into my ear.

I wonder if any of us will ever truly  _be_ okay.

I cringe slightly. "Yeah, me too."

The war might be over, but our individual fights are not. Maybe someday...

At least we can still fight together.

* * *

It takes time, but we do learn to find purpose, and to organize our lives without an oppressor to exploit them, and without letting our nightmares paralyze us. More and more people are coming back, slowly rebuilding what once was, new and better. I'm busy hunting, because that's what I do best, and fresh game is still most welcome on the market. Peeta is busy at the new bakery, working obsessively and providing smiles along with the bread, reuniting with old friends, and making new ones too.

I can't be more grateful for him being around and reasonably happy, because I know we do need each other in our lives. To what capacity, time will tell.

The world isn't watching us anymore, and it's fine that way.

But I often watch his hands knead dough or frost cakes, both skills that stubbornly elude me, yet remind him of better times – of a foundation that has survived everything. I'd felt them caress me, I'd felt them strangle me, both in situations that would never have happened if it hadn't been for the Games, but watching them now gives me a sense of peace, an assurance that the worst times are over and that the better don't have to be defined by them more than we allow.

That however much of ourselves we have given away, something remains to be salvaged.

/

I don't feel like salvaging romances yet, though, neither fake nor real.

I need to piece myself together first, just to make sure that I can do it, that I can live without tying my identity to someone else. That I can talk and smile and hug and give and take without danger, guilt or remorse urging me beyond my comfort zone.

/

Gale remains working in Two for a time, but his visits become increasingly frequent when his family moves back to Twelve. I look forward to seeing him more and more, and always take time to be alone with him out in the woods, just us, just friends, just good times.

Sometimes I still have to look away, sometimes I look at him and I see Prim laughing as he'd spun her around or carried her on his shoulders when I was no longer strong enough to do so.

The flames I see between us are sometimes phantom, and sometimes they are real - those of campfires we light to keep warm.

/

When Haymitch asks me about boy trouble, or whether I'd broken any hearts lately, I threaten to break his nose and he clutches his chest in response. Then we usually drink until we laugh and laugh until we puke and even that's okay.

Life goes on.

I realize my options are still extant, and that new ones are opening for everyone, but since my emotions are no longer pertinent to national security, I don't feel pressured. And if I ever did, I still have my bow and know how to use it.

I'm done with pain and death, but a warning shot into the air wouldn't hurt anyone, now, would it?


	4. (epilogue)

**(epilogue)**

_Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young  
in a world of magnets and miracles…_

And sometimes, there are moments when I'd need a warning shot myself, but can't bring myself to stay away. Perhaps I'll never stop playing with fire.

Like now:

Gale is back for the longest vacation yet, the air is warm and the primroses are blooming (I've always like them better out in the woods, where they belong).

He glances at me, frowns in brief contemplation and brushes his fingers against one – as if he wanted to pluck it from its stem, but thought better of it. He wouldn't hurt a primrose.

Several hundred silent yards later, when we sit down on the rock we still consider  _ours_ , he lifts an empty hand to my temple and brushes a few stray dark tresses behind my ear instead of slipping a flower into my hair like he'd perhaps intended to. I like it better that way, and shift a bit closer. I got used to coming here alone during his necessary absences, but it still feels better when we are here together. Not just okay, but better.

I look into Gale's eyes now, and see new life springing from the ashes. Ashes that will never be forgotten. We won't let them be forgotten.

When he speaks, he stirs another memory, a ghost of a past that has never happened, and I don't know what present it would've yielded. Perhaps similar for us right in this moment, but different for thousands of others, for better or for worse.

This time, it's a question, not an assessment. "Run away with me, Catnip?"

I'm no longer afraid of ghosts, and he said it like a joke anyway.

I snort with laughter and smack his knee playfully. "Pushing your luck? What makes you think I'd wanna be stuck with you?"

Gale shrugs with a smile. "I'm not asking for forever. Just a little escape. We can go wherever we want now."

"Okay, then," I say, and he smiles wider. I return the smile without hesitation now. Just because I can. Just because there still is something to smile about.

When he tentatively lays his hand on my cheek and leans forward, I don't pull away. Instead, my lips meet his halfway, because just once is not enough, not when we can have more.

There's nobody watching now.

It's just us. It's okay.

We are strong enough to be together despite everything that had happened, and strong enough to be apart, whatever we choose. We can stay, we can run. Nobody will punish us; nobody will be interrogated and threatened in our absence.

We are free to come and go now. Free to live, free to love.

Free.

The concept still takes some getting used to. Especially for me, since the fight for freedom has practically wiped my mind blank, and I'm only slowly filling it again, gathering fragments of the past, striving to fulfill the present with something meaningful and to savor it, slowly allowing myself thoughts of future.

I don't know what exactly I want it to hold, not yet. I don't feel up to making binding choices, not so soon after becoming unbound and damn close to undone.

And I'm not alone.

I know that my friends, fellow fighters, my fellow victors, feel similarly. All are dear to me, each in a different way, and I'm not letting decisions get between us again.

We are still young, survivors in a reborn world, free to forge our own futures to the best of our ability. Our choices will be our own from now on. With freedom comes responsibility and there's no happily ever after, every day is both a reward and a challenge. But we will go on.

We've been through worse.


End file.
